La Liga match to be played in Miami?

Globalisation may be under threat elsewhere, but it persists and indeed accelerates in football,

La Liga want to stage December’s scheduled domestic league fixture between Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami.

According to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, who asked The Athletic to remain anonymous to protect relationships, the Spanish top-flight league have held preliminary discussions to relocate the fixture, which would ordinarily take place at Villarreal’s Estadio de la Ceramica home in eastern Spain, to instead be staged in Florida.

It would be the first time a European top-flight league fixture has taken place in the United States.

On Monday, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) will discuss their approval of the proposal, which if granted, would lead to UEFA being asked to initiate the procedures for FIFA to grant authorisation for the fixture change.

The Spanish league first attempted to stage a match abroad in 2018 with a proposal for Girona’s home league game against Barcelona to be played in Miami. However, this was met with opposition from both the RFEF and FIFA, world football’s governing body, as was a similar proposal the following year to play Atletico Madrid’s league match against Villarreal in the U.S..

Since then, relations between La Liga and the RFEF have improved. Meanwhile, the possibility of playing domestic league fixtures abroad has increased after FIFA was dropped from a landmark lawsuit by the U.S. events promoter Relevent in April 2024.

Relevent, founded by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross, accused FIFA’s directive, issued in 2018, of guiding that domestic games should be played in their home territory, as acting as a monopoly and preventing fair competition.

FIFA and Relevent settled on their case without prejudice, meaning Relevent reserve the right to reopen their litigation should FIFA not come up with a satisfactory reconsideration of their position.

Any competitive fixture being staged abroad requires a green light from each domestic federation — the RFEF and the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) — alongside each of the relevant continental-wide confederations, UEFA and Concacaf.

FIFA, meanwhile, brought global club soccer to the U.S. this summer by revamping their Club World Cup as a 32-team tournament. They have been in the process of reviewing their policies on domestic matches taking place outside of their home country for over a year and are not expected to be a hindrance to the initiative.

The biggest challenge for La Liga will be to secure the backing of the authorities at home, where the Spanish national federation must approve the fixture as well as UEFA. The RFEF is due to discuss the proposal on Monday.

Despite La Liga’s collective desire to bring a game to the U.S., Real Madrid has expressed internal opposition. Madrid, the 36-time league winner, previously opposed the idea of taking individual matches outside the U.S. because executives have concerns about how it will impact the integrity of La Liga’s competition if home advantage for a participating team is eliminated, therefore creating an imbalanced competition.

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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